Bob Perilla has been a pillar of the Mid-Atlantic bluegrass scene for over 20 years. Currently joined by Kevin Church on banjo, Norman Wright on mandolin, Mary Naden on bass, and Jon Glik on fiddle, collectively the ensemble boasts over 125 years of combined musical experience. An exciting blend of hard-driving, traditional bluegrass along with country, folk and original material will please even the most discriminating listeners and make easy converts of those unfamiliar with bluegrass music, a unique American art form.

They will be joined by last year’s band competition victors, Such Fools. Comprised of Mickey Justice, Todd Smith, and Dick Morris, they’re bound together on a quest for a meaningful musical experience. Amid the vast cultural microcosm known simply as “Delmarva”, they are as diverse as their backgrounds.

Join us September 18th-20th, 2015 in the streets of beautiful, historic Berlin, MD for 3 days of fantastic, free, family bluegrass fun…

ANNAPOLIS, MD – The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (DLLR) today participated in events as part of Governor Hogan’s “Maryland Unites: Day of Service” initiative. Maryland Unites (www.marylandunites.org) was created in the wake of civil unrest in Baltimore in April, and has raised more than $500,000 toward relief efforts. The "Day of Service" initiative is an opportunity for state employees to offer their time and talents to benefit our citizens through community service. State employees will receive four hours of paid leave if they choose to participate and have the option to take part in the agency event or a volunteer activity of their choice.

“These days of service are about the spirit of giving back and sharing it with our state and our local communities,” said Governor Hogan. “I encourage all state employees to participate in an event with the shared goal of helping those in need.”

On June 1, Governor Hogan announced “Maryland Unites: Day of Service,” directing his Executive Cabinet to coordinate a volunteer event for employees at their respective agencies. Additional “Day of Service” agency-wide events are scheduled on the following dates:Wednesday, July 29Wednesday, August 12Wednesday, August 26

The victors of war write its history in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light. That explains the considerable historical ignorance about our war of 1861 and panic over the Confederate flag. To create better understanding, we have to start a bit before the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the war between the colonies and Great Britain. Its first article declared the 13 colonies "to be free, sovereign and independent states." These 13 sovereign nations came together in 1787 as principals and created the federal government as their agent. Principals have always held the right to fire agents. In other words, states held a right to withdraw from the pact — secede.

During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it, saying, "A union of the states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."

In fact, the ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said they held the right to resume powers delegated should the federal government become abusive of those powers. The Constitution never would have been ratified if states thought they could not regain their sovereignty — in a word, secede.

Nearly one-third of veterans currently waiting for medical care provided by the Veterans Affairs Department have died, according to a VA report obtained by theHuffington Post.

According to the July 13 article, more than 238,000 of the 847,000 on a list of veterans waiting for healthcare through the VA have already died.

Because the the names appear on the list to begin with, that means that the veterans died while waiting for medical care.

The information comes from an April 2015 report called "Analysis of Death Services" and was provided to the Huffington Post by Scott Davis, a program specialist at the VA Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta.

Members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee have issued statements about the news and are pressing the VA for answers.

The victors of war write its history in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light. That explains the considerable historical ignorance about our war of 1861 and panic over the Confederate flag. To create better understanding, we have to start a bit before the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the war between the colonies and Great Britain. Its first article declared the 13 colonies “to be free, sovereign and independent states.” These 13 sovereign nations came together in 1787 as principals and created the federal government as their agent. Principals have always held the right to fire agents. In other words, states held a right to withdraw from the pact — secede.

During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it, saying, “A union of the states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”

In fact, the ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said they held the right to resume powers delegated should the federal government become abusive of those powers. The Constitution never would have been ratified if states thought they could not regain their sovereignty — in a word, secede.

If Wall Street wants to get out of Hillary Clinton’s cross hairs, it may have to pay up.

In her first major economic policy address, Clinton said she would “offer plans to rein in excessive risks on Wall Street and ensure that stock markets work for everyday investors, not just high-frequency traders and those with the best — or fastest — connections.”

The former secretary of state turned her attention to the banks and specifically targeted HSBC for “allowing drug cartels to launder money,” saying: “There can be no justification or tolerance for this kind of criminal behavior.”

Records show Bill Clinton delivered one of his six-figure speeches to HSBC Securities, the couple once owned stock in the company and many HSBC employees have individually donated money to the Clinton Foundation.

Critics questioned Clinton’s credibility.

“She’s profited both directly with speeches and indirectly at the Clinton Foundation from the activities of all these firms, and if she didn’t like what they were doing, I don’t understand why she would take their money,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-leaning American Action Forum.

The victors of war write its history in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light. That explains the considerable historical ignorance about our war of 1861 and panic over the Confederate flag. To create better understanding, we have to start a bit before the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the war between the colonies and Great Britain. Its first article declared the 13 colonies "to be free, sovereign and independent states." These 13 sovereign nations came together in 1787 as principals and created the federal government as their agent. Principals have always held the right to fire agents. In other words, states held a right to withdraw from the pact — secede.

During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it, saying, "A union of the states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."

With the fall of China’s stock market and the deteriorating situation in Greece, it seems like the world is preparing to experience another system economic collapse. But as the alternative media has been warning for years, the problems of the last crisis have yet to be truly solved. With the exception of countries like Iceland, who had the foresight to let the big banks fail, most developed countries are still in worse shape than they were before.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the United States, where roughly 8 years after the housing crash, millions of people are still on food stamps. Which if you think about it, isn’t that the true measure of a nation’s economic health? Can the people actually feed themselves? According to the Free Beacon, many of them still can’t:

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) — A tough new anti-smoking law goes into effect at a major local hospital. From now on, employees who want to work at Anne Arundel Medical Center will have to pass a test to prove they’re nicotine-free.

Christie Ileto has more on the surprisingly tough move.

The controversial hiring policy is legal and gaining popularity across Maryland and the country.

Smokers aren’t wanted. It’s the new hiring policy for Anne Arundel County Medical Center—which also includes all nicotine products.

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — A 9-year-old boy who was fatally beaten over a missing birthday cake had been handcuffed for up to three hours a day for a week before the deadly assault, according to court records released Tuesday in Maryland.

A doctor who examined Jack Garcia before the boy died concluded his head injuries and extensive bruising came from numerous beatings and were consistent with torture, police said.

Jack Garcia’s mother, Oriana Iris Garcia, 26, approved of her boyfriend and brother handcuffing her son because “she was trying to teach Jack not to steal,” Hagerstown Police Detective Shane Blankenship wrote in charging documents.

BALTIMORE, MD – Mike Gill, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED), today joined George Tunis, chairman and CEO of Hardwire LLC, to announce that the State has entered into an agreement with Hardwire Armor Systems under which the company will lease with an option to buy the Pocomoke Flex Building. Located at 1731 Broad Street in Pocomoke City, Md., the 42,000-square-foot building will be the third building occupied by Hardwire in the city. ​“Over the past 15 years, Hardwire’s products have strengthened our nation’s infrastructure, protected our war fighters, and addressed some of the most critical safety and security issues,” said Secretary Gill. “Governor Hogan and I are very pleased that the company has opted to expand its operations on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and help grow the state’s burgeoning high-tech defense and aerospace industries.”

The killing of children is considered even holier and more sacred to its disciples than gay marriage or genital mutilation. Like the primitive pagan cultures before them, liberalism looks upon the sacred rite of child sacrifice with a deep reverence. The liberal has a cult-like, religious devotion to sacrament of infanticide. Liberals will venerate it for the same reason Catholics venerate the Eucharist and Muslims the Koran — because it is the centerpiece of their worship, the core, the soul of the thing.

Once we understand this, we should not be surprised by the events of these last few days. To the outside observer — someone mercifully unfamiliar with the teachings of the liberal church — it might seem surprising, even remarkable, that the nation’s largest abortion provider was caught on tape selling the dismembered body parts and organs of dead children, and that liberals immediately and passionately defended the practice. The behavior on the part of Planned Parenthood shouldn’t shock us, as I said yesterday, but neither should the nauseating response from the media and various liberal pundits.

I say “response,” but naturally the response from much of the media was nothing but a blaring, deafening silence. Aside from Fox News, most of the cable and network channels dusted off their patented blackout strategy, last employed during the Kermit Gosnell trial, and ignored the scandal completely. In fairness, CNN did have more important things to talk about, like Kylie Jenner’s hairdo.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says the historic Iran nuclear deal reached in Vienna Tuesday will secure Iran's pathway to a bomb and add to its capability to terrorize the West and the Middle East.

Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican, told me Tuesday that President Barack Obama was incorrect in asserting that the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers will keep Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed state.

"I don’t know what information the Obama administration possesses that indicates this deal will actually prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon or will cause the mullahs to reduce their support for worldwide terrorism, but it sure isn’t the same intelligence we’re seeing in the Intelligence Committee," he said. "Iran has killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers, tried to conduct a terrorist attack in the United States, and is committed to annihilating Israel. This deal will guarantee Iran the capability to carry out its clear intent."

Nunes's skepticism about the deal is supported in part by even some top military advisers and senior officials in the Obama administration.

At a hearing Monday in Manhattan in which he ruled filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza must continue community service for four more years, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said he considers D’Souza’s violation of federal campaign-finance laws to be evidence of a psychological problem and ordered further counseling.

D’Souza’s defense counsel Benjamin Brafman provided evidence to the court that the psychiatrist D’Souza was ordered to see found no indication of depression or reason for medication. In addition, the psychologist D’Souza subsequently consulted provided a written statement concluding there was no need to continue the consultation, because D’Souza was psychologically normal and well adjusted.

But Judge Berman, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, disagreed, effectively overruling the judgment of the two licensed psychological counselors the U.S. probation department had approved as part of D’Souza’s criminal sentence.

D’Souza has become known for his two popular films critical of President Obama. “2016: Obama’s America”was released during the 2012 presidential campaign and “America: Imagine the World Without Her” came out in July 2014, ahead of the midterm elections. More here

Berlin, Md. – Existing home sales on the Lower Eastern Shore continue to reflect an upward trend, according to the latest figures from the Coastal Association of REALTORS® (CAR).

CAR’s local housing statistics for June 2015 show settlements of existing homes in the Tri-County area were up 14.5 percent compared to the same month last year. Of particular note is a 55.7 percent increase in single family home settlements in Wicomico County. Worcester County’s single family homes saw a 4.3 percent increase in settlements and Somerset County saw a 12.5 percent increase.

Contracts, or pending sales, were also up, showing an overall 21.1 percent increase compared to the same month last year. Worcester County contracts for single family homes were up 52.6 percent, pointing toward a future increase of settlements.

“More than likely, the nice weather is attracting homebuyers to the beach area and people are finding second homes and vacation homes,” said Vicki Harmon, president of the CAR Board of Directors. “They’ve started the buying process by completing their contracts and are working towards settlement.”

WASHINGTON – A convicted sex offender has been indicted on first-degree murder charges for the 1975 disappearance of two sisters from Montgomery County.

Lloyd Lee Welch was formally charged July 10 in Bedford County, Virginia, for the deaths of Shiela, 12, and Katherin, 10, Lyon, who were last seen at at Wheaton Plaza, now known as Westfield Wheaton Mall.

Police announced more than a year ago that they had identified Welch, a convicted sex offender, as a person of interest in the long cold case. He remains in a Delaware prison and officials say they will begin the extradition process immediately.

By any reasonable assessment, the United States is losing its 36-year war with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The surrender to Iran on sanctions and nuclear weapons will be one more stage in the American defeat by a determined, dishonest and surprisingly effective theocratic dictatorship in Tehran.

Historians will look back on the Iranian campaign against the United States and conclude that there have been few examples of a weaker power so decisively outmaneuvering, bluffing, deceiving and weakening its vastly more powerful opponent.

Sun Tzu would be proud of the strategic skills exhibited by the Iranians and their ability to lie and feign reasonableness while calmly and steadily implementing a strategy of relentless aggression.

Now, through these strategies, the Iranians are on the verge of a triple victory over the United States: an agreement that will legitimize Iran as the dominant regional power, substantially expand the amount of money it has to support terrorism and other military efforts, and smooth the path to its becoming a nuclear power.

This will be the greatest victory yet for the Iranian dictatorship in its war against America.

In spite of the fact that new sports venues often cost upwards of billions of dollars to construct, many American teams play in stadiums and arenas that are less than 25 years old. Heck, once the Atlanta Braves move into their new park, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park will be the most senior venue in the NL East — and that only opened in 2004. Whether it’s through municipal bonds, tax breaks, or free real estate, a lot of the money to pay for these venues ultimately comes out of taxpayers’ pockets.

On Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looked into the billions in public money that has been sunk into new and renovated stadiums during the recent building bonanza of the last two decades — a construction spree that isn’t just about creating new arenas but about who can build the fanciest.

“You can now watch a game from a swimming pool suspended above the field, where the real contest for the fans is finding out whether or not HPV [human papillomavirus] can swim,” says Oliver. “My money’s on HPV; that’s a clutch STD.”

Most new stadiums “look like they were designed by a coked-up Willy Wonka,” he notes, citing examples like the field-level aquarium that sounds the playing field at the Florida Marlins’ recently opened stadium.

He gives the example of the $283 million in taxpayer funding that the Detroit Red Wings got from Detroit — a city that had just declared bankruptcy weeks earlier — and even though multibillionaire Little Caesars founder Mike Ilitch is the team’s owner.

“That’s a little hard to swallow,” says Oliver. “Not as hard to swallow as a Little Caesars Crazy Bread with an assortment of Caesar dips, but still pretty hard.”

I’ve been going to baseball games since I was old enough to walk, and I’ve even had regular seats in prime foul ball territory. Yet I’ve never managed to snag an errant ball (and luckily, I’ve never had to duck out of the way from a flying bat). If a new lawsuit has its way, my dream of someday catching a foul ball will become even more of a fantasy.

“Every year, a growing number of fans, of all ages but often children, suffer often horrific and preventable injuries, such as blindness, skull fractures, severe concussions, and brain hemorrhages, when they are struck by a screaming foul ball or flying shrapnel from a shattered bat while sitting in an unprotected area,” reads the complaint [PDF] filed in a federal court in California against the office of Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has quietly dropped part the SAFE Act, his landmark anti-gun law, by dropping the background checks and registry for ammunition purchases in the Empire State. But how and why this decision was made has been shrouded in secrecy as the deal was made behind closed doors and New Yorkers are not being told the whole deal.

The administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo agreed on Friday to suspend a plan to require background checks on ammunition sales, putting in doubt part of the gun control law that he considers one of his proudest legacies.

The decision, which the administration did not publicize, was the result of an unusual deal the governor’s office reached with the State Senate’s Republican majority. The Senate’s Democratic minority and the speaker of the State Assembly condemned the move.

The background-check system was approved as part of the Safe Act, the set of tough gun control measures that Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, persuaded lawmakers to pass in January 2013, shortly after the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

The act was a signature accomplishment of the governor’s first term, and one that he has frequently spoken of with pride, making the move on Friday particularly surprising.

When headstones on the graves of fallen servicemen crack or fade with age, they’re hauled away to be honorably destroyed. Then the Department of Veterans Affairs replaces them.

But at a veterans cemetery in Rhode Island, an employee who was supposed to be taking care of the graves pillaged more than 150 granite headstones, many of them still inscribed with the names of the veterans. Then he took the markers home to build a floor for his carport.

When investigators arrived at Kevin Maynard’s house in Charlestown, R.I., this spring, they come upon an eerie scene, according to a federal affadavit: The grave markers, most with the inscriptions face down, were serving as the foundation for two makeshift carports held up by aluminum poles and plastic tarps.

In the wake of the recent murders in a South Carolina church, the killer’s hope of igniting a race war produced the opposite effect. Blacks and whites in South Carolina came together to condemn his act and the race hate behind it.

Some saw in the decision to remove the Confederate flag from in front of the state house a symbolic repudiation of the old South’s racial past — and the end of the Civil War. But, unfortunately, wars do not end until both sides decide that it is over.

The black parishioners who expressed forgiveness toward the killer did more than most of us could do, and the whites who responded with solidarity did their part. Note how quickly this was done, by ordinary people of good will — black and white — without the “help” of racial activists like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.

Professional race hustlers have no incentive to see our current civil war end. They see in this shooting only an opportunity to escalate their demands.

Now there are rumblings of demands that statues of Robert E. Lee and other Southern leaders be destroyed — and if that is done, it will only lead to new demands, perhaps to destroy the Jefferson Memorial because Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. And if that is done, no doubt there will be demands that the city of Washington be renamed, for the same reason.

In short, there is no stopping point, just unending strife as far out as the eye can see. And just what will that accomplish? It could ultimately accomplish the killer’s dream of racial polarization and violence.

The Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced today a groundbreaking settlement to resolve allegations that American Honda Finance Corporation (Honda) engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African-American, Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander borrowers in auto lending. Honda is based in Torrance, California.

The settlement is especially noteworthy because of the company’s commitment to significantly limit the discretion of car dealers to charge interest rate markups on Honda loans. Specifically, Honda has agreed to change the way it prices its loans by limiting dealer markup to 125 basis points (or 1.25 percentage points) for loans of 60 months or less, and to 100 basis points (or 1 percentage point) for loans greater than 60 months. The settlement also provides $24 million in compensation for alleged victims of past discrimination by the nation’s ninth largest auto lender.

“We commend Honda for its leadership in agreeing to impose lower caps on discretionary markups and for its commitment to treating all of its customers fairly without regard to race or national origin,” said Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division. “We recognize that dealerships perform a valuable service in connecting customers with lenders and that they should be fairly compensated for that service. We believe that Honda’s new compensation system balances fair compensation for dealers and fair lending for consumers. We hope that Honda’s leadership will spur the rest of the industry to constrain dealer markup to address discriminatory pricing.”

This summer there's been an intense debate surrounding the Confederate flag and the legacy of slavery in this country.

In Texas that debate revolves around new textbooks that 5 million students will use when the school year begins next month.

The question is, are students getting a full and accurate picture of the past?

Eleventh-grade U.S. history teacher Samantha Manchac is concerned about the new materials and is already drawing up her lesson plans for the coming year. She teaches at The High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, a public school in Houston.

The first lesson she says she'll give her kids is how textbooks can tell different versions of history. "We are going to utilize these textbooks to some extent, but I also want you to be critical of the textbooks and not take this as the be-all and end-all of American history," she imagines telling her new students.

Chicago — Truck driver Lucio Barrera said he didn’t think twice about signing a contract in 2013 with DNJ Intermodal Services, even though it barred him from using his truck to do business with other companies and he had to use and pay for DNJ’s communication and tracking systems.

Barrera said he started having doubts about the arrangement last year, when he got paychecks that showed zero earnings. Barrera said DNJ was deducting costs for repairing, towing and storing his 1996 Freightliner semitractor-trailer truck. In January, the company seized the truck for back payment and told Barrera his services were no longer needed, Barrera said.

In June, Barrera, 41, of Chicago, filed suit against DNJ in federal court in Chicago claiming the company imposed so much control over him that he should have been classified as an employee, not an independent contractor. Barrera said in his suit that he believes 50-100 other drivers “suffered the same type of economic damages as a result of DNJ’s practices and policies.”

The Boy Scouts of America has moved one step closer to ending its ban on gay adults as leaders.

The organization's executive committee adopted a resolution last week that would change the policy.

"This resolution will allow chartered organizations to select adult leaders without regard to sexual orientation, continuing Scouting's longstanding policy of chartered organizations selecting their leaders," the Boy Scouts said in a statement Monday.

"This change allows Scouting's members and parents to select local units, chartered to organizations with similar beliefs, that best meet the needs of their families. This change would also respect the right of religious chartered organizations to continue to choose adult leaders whose beliefs are consistent with their own," it read.

The national executive board is expected to meet to ratify the resolution on July 27.

Scouts for Equality, an organization dedicated to ending the ban, cheered the news.

DEWITT – TWP. – Presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul told an overflow crowd at the Draft House Saturday that he thinks the Republican party must be a "bigger, better, bolder" party if it intends to win Michigan in 2016.

"We need people in our party with earrings and without, with tattoos and without," he said. "Do we need to dilute what we stand for? ... We need to be more boldly for what we are for."

In Paul's case, that includes a flat income tax of 14.5 percent, a reduction in power for the executive branch and a broader perception of the Republican platform beyond the Second Amendment to include privacy and property rights.

On Friday, 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump met with Jamiel Shaw, Sabine Durden, Don Rosenberg, Lupe Moreno, Brenda Sparks and Robin Hvidston, all of whom reportedly lost a family member at the hands of illegal immigrants, reported Breitbart.

Meanwhile, as Trump took time out of his day to sit down with real victims, President Barack Hussein Obama announced plans to visit a federal prison in Oklahoma next Thursday to bitch about “the unfairness” of the criminal justice system, commute the sentences of 22 federal drug offenders, speak directly with inmates and participate in a Vice documentary (H/T The Hill).

According to The Washington Examiner, “Of the more than 2,200 people who received federal sentences for drug possession in fiscal year 2014, almost three-quarters of them were illegal immigrants.”

During our last era of high immigration, remembered now as the “Ellis Island” age, our leaders would use the Fourth of July to stump for something once quaintly known as Americanization. Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Louis Brandeis — they all did it, with stirring speeches about bringing new immigrants fully into the American dream.

Presidential candidates, take note. One of the best ways to honor and safeguard our independence today is to start a debate on patriotic assimilation.

For centuries, America welcomed succeeding surges of immigrants with an invitation to join a unique American culture that includes specific principles and virtues. Then, in the 1970s, our elites decided to reverse course, and started promoting sectarianism.

We’ve never really had a debate on what is nothing less than a complete overhaul of the organizing principle of this most diverse of nations. The decisions that led us here were bureaucratic and incremental. Congress passed a law here, federal agencies issued a rule there, and the courts made decisions hither and yonder.

Before we knew it, we had shifted from more than two centuries of perfecting the melting pot to a system of adversarial multiculturalism. Rather than welcoming legal immigrants as new members of our national family, today’s coercive diversity works differently: Immigrants are immediately categorized into bureaucratic, pan-ethnic “minority” groups such as “Hispanic” or “Asian,” each with an ascribed set of supposed cultural norms to which they are expected to conform.

Facing the juggernaut of a campaign being mounted by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, few experts in U.S. politics give Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders a much chance of seriously challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination. In fact, it took a certain amount of audacity for Sanders, an avowed socialist, to even enter the race.

However, Bernie Sanders is nothing if not audacious, as his myriad policy proposals show. Sanders is working hard to pull the Clinton campaign to the left with proposals, most of which involve spending a lot of money, that Clinton will have to respond to.

In fact, top Republicans are already speaking of Sanders and Clinton in the same breath, tying the front-runner to the insurgent’s expansive view of the federal government.

Appearing on “Face the Nation” Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Sanders and Clinton are both "out of step with mainstream America. There's no limit to the number of taxes that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to raise. There is no limit to the amount of new government they want to create. And I don't think that's where the American people want this government to go. They're tired of these big-government solutions. Republicans believe in empowering people so that they can pursue their own American dream.”

BERLIN – Actress Quinn McColgan hopes to keep fans on the edge of their seats with her latest role, a lead part in the horror movie “Extinction.”

McColgan, a soon to be eighth-grader at Worcester Preparatory School, stars with Matthew Fox and Jeffrey Donovan in “Extinction,” a story of survival in a post-apocalyptic world. The movie will be in theaters July 31.

If you have got family and friends that you would like to visit before things start getting really crazy, you should do so within the next couple of months, because these are the last days of “normal life” in America.

The website where I have posted this article is called “End of the American Dream“, but perhaps I should have entitled it “The End of America” because that is essentially what we are heading for. The debt-fueled prosperity that so many of us take for granted is about to come to a screeching halt, and we are about to enter the hardest times that any of us have ever known. And I am not just talking about economics either. Based on all of the intel and information that I have gathered, we are about to enter a “perfect storm” that is going to shake this country in just about every possible way that it can be shaken. So I hope that you will truly savor this summer – days like this will not come around again any time soon.

Have you ever known someone that lived a seemingly charmed life even though that individual made foolish decision after foolish decision?

In the end, reality almost always catches up with people like that.

And in so many ways, we have been living a charmed life as a nation even though we have been making incredibly foolish decisions for decades. We have cursed ourselves over and over again, and just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us. As a nation, we now stand for just about everything that is foul, disgusting and wicked, and the rest of the world is absolutely horrified by what has happened to us.

Once upon a time, we were one of the most loved nations on the entire planet.

The US will “invite” escaped Mexican billionaire druglord El Chapo “to become a US citizen,” real estate mogul Donald Trump sardonically predicted in a tweet sent late last night.

On Saturday, drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, escaped a Mexican prison for a second time, riding a motorcycle out of a one-mile underground tunnel dug directly beneath his cell.

BALTIMORE —A new plan for the city's recreation centers and pools was unveiled Tuesday by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Baltimore City Recreation and Parks and community members.

Under the proposal, more than $136 million will be invested in fitness and wellness, community centers, outdoor and indoor pools and splash pads, and athletic field complexes.

"Our goal is to transition the city's aging recreation centers into a new network of high-quality facilities in order to better serve Baltimore's communities," Rawlings-Blake said. "This plan is a necessary investment in our city and a result of my commitment to quality recreation programming for all residents."

In addition to releasing the plan for recreation and parks, the mayor asked the City Council to schedule a hearing on a plan presented last year to sell four city-owned parking garages downtown and dedicate the -- estimated to yield up to $50 million -- to the recreation center improvements, funding that would enable construction to move ahead more quickly.